The Federal Reserve should wait until the first half of 2016 before raising interest rates because inflation remains too low and there are "significant uncertainties as to the future resilience of economic growth," the International Monetary Fund said Thursday in its annual review of the U.S. economy.

After the economy shrank in the first quarter, the agency also cut its forecast for U.S. growth this year to 2.5% from 3.1% in April.

The IMF's recommendation runs counter to Fed policymakers' public statements that the central bank probably will raise it benchmark rate this year. The rate has been near zero since the 2008 financial crisis.

"Inflation is not progressing at a rate that would warrant, without risk, a rate hike in the next few months," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said at a news conference in Washington. "The economy will the better off with a rate hike in early 2016."

In its concluding statement of its consultation with the US, the IMF said, "There is a strong case for waiting to raise rates until there are more tangible signs of wage or price inflation than are currently evident." It said its recommendation was based on the current trajectory of economic growth and inflation.

"Raising rates too soon could trigger a greater than expected tightening of financial conditions or a bout of financial instability, causing the economy to stall," the agency added. "This would likely force the Fed to reverse direction, moving rates back down toward zero with potential costs to credibility."

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U.S. stocks were higher in early trading on Wednesday after data showed that the country's private sector added more jobs than expected in May and the European Central Bank left interest rates unchanged at record lows.

U.S. private employers added 201,000 jobs last month, a report by a payrolls processor ADP showed, higher than the 165,000 additions in April and economists' estimate of a gain of 200,000 for May.

The data is a precursor to the U.S. Labor Department's non-farm payrolls report on Friday, which includes both public and private-sector employment numbers.

"There was nothing disturbing in the numbers," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia.

"The number is strong enough to create some sensitivity around the timing of a rate hike in the second half of the year."

The ECB's decision to leave rates unchanged was widely expected after the central bank cut rates to rock-bottom levels last September and said they had hit "the lower bound".

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Coffee futures rallied as a scattering of modest supply concerns, from Brazil to Indonesia, prompted hedge funds to take profits on short bets - which data revealed they had increased at a record pace.

Arabica coffee futures for July jumped 2.9% to 129.80 cents a pound on New York's ICE exchange, while in London, July robusta coffee futures for July soared 4.1% to $1,699 a tonne.

The gains accelerated a recovery from lows last week, when arabica coffee hit a 14-month low, on a spot contract basis, and robusta coffee futures an 18-month nadir.

And they were fuelled by some data which prompted hedge funds to consider taking profits on a net short position in arabica futures and options which regulatory data showed was, at 18,682 lots as of last Tuesday, the highest since December 2013.

That followed a record week for bearish positioning on arabica coffee futures and options by hedge funds.

Extreme speculative net short, or net long, positions can spur a retreat, in raising concerns over the appetite for more such holding.

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The dollar hit a fresh high of more than 12 years against the yen in Asia trade Tuesday, briefly breaking above ¥125 before weakening on profit-taking and adjusting of positions.

The greenback reached ¥125.07 in the morning, its highest since December 2002, before softening to ¥124.67 around 1:50 p.m. local time (00:50 a.m. ET). Those levels compare with ¥124.80 late Monday in New York.

The U.S. currency initially maintained its overnight gains following solid U.S. manufacturing data for May released by the Institute for Supply Management. Then a bout of dollar buying briefly pushed the dollar through option-related barriers around the ¥125 mark. Some of the dollar buying may have come from short-term players hoping to capitalize on extra gains in the dollar by triggering stop-loss buying orders above ¥125, though it isn’t clear whether they achieved this.

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The price of Brent oil fell almost 1 per cent on Monday to about $US65 a barrel, tempering a rally that saw oil prices climb ahead of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting on Friday.

The price has steadily climbed from a six-year low of $US46 a barrel in January, when a global supply glut meant that Australian consumers briefly enjoyed petrol prices as low as $1 a litre. Since then, the commodity has experienced a "relief rally", due to increasing expectation of a slowdown in supply from the United States, ANZ head of commodities, Mark Pervan said.

"There seems to be growing expectation that the lower prices are having the effect [OPEC] is looking for, and that's supply discipline in the US," he said.

OPEC, which accounts for 40 per cent of the world's oil supply, has stubbornly refused to cut production despite the glut. Saudi Arabia is reportedly pumping 10.25 million barrels a day, while OPEC increased its output target by 67,000 barrels to 31.57 million a day in May.

Analysts are widely expecting OPEC to maintain its current output, when it meets in Vienna at the end of the week.

"I'd be surprised if they do move on supply," Mr Pervan said.

"Their concern right now is of losing market share and the last thing they want to do is pull back on supply unless prices come under control."

Morgan Stanley analyst, Stuart Baker said the bank's position on an oil price recovery was "constructive" and fundamentals were improving with supply starting to plateau on rising demand.

"We're not super bulls but we're not bears, we don't think it's going to settle under $US60 for a long period, you can't replace current production at those prices," he said.

"Oil prices are going to have to gravitate higher."

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Pilots on four commercial flights reported being targeted by green lasers during flights over New York Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

According to the FAA, the flights – American 185, Shuttle America 4213, Delta 2292 and Delta 2634 – were flying at an altitude of 8,000 feet approximately four miles northwest of Farmingdale on Long Island when the pilots reported that lasers were illuminating their aircraft, a federal crime.

The planes were flying out of John F. Kennedy international Airport.

The incidents all occurred between 9:30 and 10 p.m. No injuries were reported, and the flights all continued without further incident.

Authorities are investigating, but at this point no one has been taken into custody.

Pointing a laser into the cockpit of a plane carries a maximum of five years in federal prison and a quarter of a million dollars fine.

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Oil prices extended their gains on Friday, helped by a decline in U.S. oil inventories as investors turn their attention to next week’s OPEC meeting.

Brent crude for July delivery recently rose 0.9% to $63.17 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate futures for July were trading up 1.1% at $58.32 a barrel.

U.S. commercial crude-oil inventories fell by a more-than-expected 2.8 million barrels last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said Thursday.

Lower oil imports and a rise in crude processing were behind the fourth consecutive inventory draw, analysts at Commerzbank said. Gasoline demand was also healthy and reached its highest since 2007.

“The summer driving season in the U.S. has thus started with a vengeance,” the bank said.

However, U.S. crude production jumped to 9.57 million barrels a day after several weeks of declines. The EIA also reported that March production was 9.53 million barrels a day, the highest since the 1970s.

“Yesterday’s data showed a mixed sentiment as the bearish production increase was offset by a bullish inventory decrease,” said Daniel Ang, analyst at Phillip Futures. “As a result of this, we were seeing the bulls and the bears fighting fiercely.”

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Could toasted buns be the trick to turning McDonald's around?

CEO Steve Easterbrook said during a conference on Wednesday that while the company will make organizational changes in an attempt to stop decreasing sales, "at a more fundamental level we are recommitting to hotter, tastier food across the menu." When it comes to burgers, McDonald's will soon alter "the way we sear and then grill our beef so the patties come off juicier," and buns will get toasted for five more seconds to bump the temperature up 15 degrees. "It's the little things that add up to a big difference for our customers," Easterbrook said.

McDonald’s isn't stopping there when it comes to bread, BuzzFeed reports. In Australia, they're testing a brioche bun, and in India, customers can request a focaccia bun made with olive oil, rosemary, and oregano.

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A stretch of Manhattan Beach is closed as U.S. Coast Guard scientists investigate mysterious balls of tar or oil that have washed ashore.

Fire officials say it appears to be about a barrel or two of oil — nothing like the spill from a pipeline that created a 10-square-mile slick off the Santa Barbara County coast last week.

However, a two-mile stretch of beach was closed Wednesday from Manhattan into neighboring Hermosa Beach.

The cause of the goo is a mystery. There's a refinery and oil pipeline nearby but the Coast Guard didn't find the sheen from a spill. It also might be residue from the Santa Barbara spill.

Finally, natural seepage has been known to leave tar balls on the sand — and beachgoers' feet.

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Identity thieves used social security numbers and other data to access the tax filings of more than 100,000 Americans this year, the IRS has admitted. In a statement, IRS commissioner John Koskinen said the "Get Transcript" feature, which allows people to access tax returns and other filings from previous years, was targeted by "extremely sophisticated criminals" who were then able to obtain an estimated $50 million in fraudulently claimed tax refunds.

Security researcher Michael Krebs wrote about the problem back in March, but the IRS said it was only alerted to the thefts when technicians noted a higher-than-usual number of people using the Get Transcript feature from February to mid-May. Koskinen said that of 23 million downloaded transcripts, there were more than 200,000 attempts to use the feature — which has been temporarily disabled — from "questionable email domains." More than 100,000 of those attempts cleared the IRS' authentication procedures.

Although it admits to paying millions of dollars to crooks, the tax agency says its central computer system is still secure, and that the social security, address, and other personal information for taxpayers was obtained elsewhere. Koskinen didn't specify where that information had come from, but said that 80 percent of the identity theft the IRS was dealing with related to organized crime, and that the people involved had access to a "tremendous amount of data."

Congress is asking the IRS for more details about the case, but if the agency can keep the amount it pays to data-stealing crooks to $50 million, it will be an improvement on previous years. Just two years ago, in 2013, Koskinen said the IRS paid out $5.8 billion in fraudulent refunds to identity thieves.

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